


Where Did the Party Go?

by SJWrites



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, TV - Fandom, will graham - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Fluff, Hannibal is a Cannibal, I'm back, I've been gone so long, Psychological Disorder, Psychological Trauma, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Will Graham - Freeform, literally my comeback to ao3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:31:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6752230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SJWrites/pseuds/SJWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham certainly did not like people, and he did not like her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Irrelevance

When Jack told Will that he was bringing in outside help, and that she was going to be at the scene in barely five minutes, he ruffled his metaphorical feathers and pouted in the way he had since he was a boy.

Will Graham didn’t particularly like people, let alone those coming from outside of his comfort zone. And the woman, no, the girl, sauntering toward the grouping of officers was just that.

He thought she looked too young, too inexperienced with thick lines of black eyeliner on her eyes, a hoodie to match. Her jeans were near torn to shreds, the pale skin peeking out smooth and porcelain looking.

Will could tell by the way she walked that her hips were out of alignment and his back began to ache in much the same way her’s was.

She had short blonde hair that Will thought was fit for a teenager, not a young woman flashing a badge to get through, grinning at Jack as she shook her hand and inadvertently showed off the black polish on her nails, the scars and fresh cuts on the back of her hands.

Will Graham certainly did not like people, and he did not like her.

“This is Chi Evans, Chi this is Will Graham.” He didn’t make eye contact with Chi- what a strange name! Instead, he chose to squint at the backdrop of trees, seeming to burn in the sunrise.

“Chi,” He tried to out, immediately recognizing it from his school days in the math room, “An interesting name.” There was nothing else to say, well, nothing that wasn’t rude. Will wasn’t in the mood to quarrel, but he also wasn’t in the mood to work with someone else on his crime scene.

“Well, my mother was a math prodigy,” And dammit, her voice was clear and it cut through the glass chest Will wore, “It would make sense that she would name me Chi.” Will noticed that she didn’t make eye contact, either, pushing her hands deep into the denim pockets on her thighs.

Jack clapped Will on the shoulder, mistaking his jab for friendly fire, “We need all the brainpower we can get on this one; we should get going.” As he turned to walk toward the blood and the death and the mutilation, Will decided to snark one more time.

“Explains why you brought in a consult from outside of the FBI instead of just using me.” He swore he heard the woman following him snort a laugh, making his lips twitch up in annoyance; or was that humor? Either way, Will didn’t care. He cared about getting this job done, going home to his dogs, and planning his lessons for the next month.

“Don’t sound so bitter, Mr. Graham. I’m only here to help. The fact that I am not FBI is irrelevant.” And it was his turn to snort, to glare at Jack out of the sides of his eyes, because yes that did, in fact, matter.

“Irrelevant, right.” And then he stepped under the tape, the blue and red lights disorienting him for a second. They made a headache that was sure to turn into a migraine bloom in his forehead, doubling the annoyance in his belly. Chi walked past him, hoodie gone and he knew that she would be cold in just a tank top the color of the snow beneath them. She seemed to breath deeply, turning away from the body to close her eyes instead of gazing into the forest.

If Will’s own method wasn’t to close his eyes, he would have called her a crock. Though, he still did because who looks away from what they're supposed to be looking at?

He finally decided that he had enough of Chi Evans and that he should do the job that he was there to do, which was to look. That was Will’s job, to look, to become, to relive, to solve. Some days he hated it, but other days he loved it.

That particular day was neither of those.

Will was drained, if not from meeting Chi, from looking at the man with no throat left, the blood pooled and frozen in the snow below his body. He felt nearly nothing, but still the same he looked and became and relieved and was on his way to solving when Chi spoke, breaking his concentration and all of the work he had put forth.

“This isn’t our victim,” She said, softer than a sigh as she turned to Will. The scene was empty except for them, “This is our suspect.”

“I highly doubt our suspect slit his own throat in the middle of the woods. Hardly a pleasant suicide. Men slit their-”

“Men slit their wrists, jump off of buildings, somewhere public.” Chi cut him off, gaze hard on the deceased, “They don’t go out to the middle of the woods to off themselves. I know. Did you notice the glass shards?”

“It’s hard not to,” Will said, looking at the reflective glass in the man’s thigh, chest, arms, everywhere. “They’re reflective. A mirror.” Suddenly Will’s mind reversed the scene and he saw a girl, running and he was there running after her. He was grinning, wielding a thick meat cleaver and cat calling, threatening her. She turned to look at him as his boots flew over the snow toward her and he knew she was his. Will watched as her head whipped around just before she crashed into a tree, mirror reflecting the impact. He had everything all set up and the bitch, the girl sobbing on the ground, had played into his trap.

“He raped her.” Will blinked and he was back to being himself, sick to his stomach, hands shaking, legs weak. Chi seemed unaffected and he wondered how.

“In front of the mirror,” Will added, “So she killed him.”

“I don’t blame her.” Her voice was hard and will let his eyes meet hers for a second. He knew his own eyes were crystalline in the way the sea met the sky, stars glowed in the night, but her’s were warm and amber like a crackling fire in the forest, like sitting in front of that with your arm wrapped around a loved one.

Will noticed, as he looked away, that they were hard with anger, but soft with pity.

“Nor do I,” He stepped carefully around the body, lips pursed, hands in his jacket pockets, “Self defense, to an extent.” Chi nodded, even though Will knew that she didn’t agree. Maybe she had been assaulted in her life, but Will would have picked up on that earlier. No, someone she had known. A sister, maybe, but not her. Chi was not the type of person to be so bitter about something that she had gone through personally. She seemed almost detached from herself; Will had done that himself before, before he got his teaching job, but then he had learned to reattach himself, if not for his sake, for his student’s sake.

“He forced her to watch; that’s why he had the mirror. She must have found a weakness, a metaphorical chink in his armor. Then she shattered the mirror, slit his throat with it. Overkill, something not foreign in rape victims.” Will didn’t speak, instead he bent at the knees to observe the body closely, fingers hovering in the air over the arm that was crooked out at an odd angle.

“Did she break his arm, or did he break himself?” His smirk could have been smug, but Chi wasn’t looking. He was glad that she wasn’t because Will never smirked with smugness, only with bitterness of slow brewed coffee, of sadness that reared it faced in the midnight hours.

“I would say it was broken in the struggle.”

“Post mortem,” Will said, standing and brushing his hands on each other. “I have everything I need to create a profile. I assume you need more time, Ms.Evans?” That time, however, Will had meant to be condescending, a sneer on his face. Chi turned to him and made eye contact, once again stunning Will with the way her brown eyes weren’t just brown, but many shades and depths and emotions wrapped into one.

“I’ve been done for a long time, Mr. Graham; in fact, I’ve been waiting on you to reach the same conclusions I have.” He scoffed and folded his hands in his pockets once more, heading for Jack and the rest of the team. Chi trailed after him, the limp in her step much more noticeable up close. “Don’t give me the silent treatment, Mulder. It’s unbecoming.” For nearly thirty seconds the reference was lost upon Will, but he gained his bearings moments after she laughed, the sound spiraling into the sunrise like a poem Will wanted to write.

“Silence is a source of great strength,” Will quote, just before they reached the police tape, “Lao Tzu said that.” Like a gentleman, he raised the tape for Chi to duck under it, her hand pushing back the blonde hair on her head just before she turned to grin wickedly at Will, throwing his insides off of their track and his mind reeling. The back and forth battle of their wit was something he enjoyed, knowing he wasn’t going to associate with her on a regular basis, but seeing her milky white teeth contrasted against the soft rose of her lips made Will want to see her more, talk to her more.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” She held the tape for Will to duck under and he let a smirk grace his lips when she could not see it, falling when she could, “Dante Alighieri said that.”

Before they reached Jack and he could see that they were getting along, Will let one more comment grace the air between Chi and himself, “Who said I was maintain my neutrality with my silence?” Chi looked over at him and shook her head, reaching for her hoodie as Jack held it out.

Will Graham certainly did not like people, but he did not mind her. At least, not too much.


	2. Sweat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chi seeks out Will.
> 
> He learns that she's a painter.

The next time Will Graham saw Chi Evans, she was breathless and standing in the doorway as he taught the case they had worked on together. He closed the slides down, eyebrows furrowed as he gestured loosely with his hands, sweaters sleeves rolled to his elbows, glasses perched on his nose.

Different from when she had seen him previous.

But Will wasn’t truly focused on Chi, he was focused on one of his male students who was sitting too eagerly, drinking in the lifeless body on the projector with too much vigor. It made every alarm bell Will was trained to hear ring in his head, another headache growing. It took over the base of his skull and subconsciously he tried to rub it away as he explained his working theory for the killing. The boy flushed when Will mentioned the semen found at the scene, bit his lip when Will showed the broken arm. He nearly groaned when Will mentioned the mirror.

The teacher knew that he had to keep that boy after class, to get to the bottom of it. While he wasn’t sure why his student was reacting so erotically to blood and death and rape, he knew that it was past a line chiseled in the concrete of the FBI’s stone steps outside the building. No matter what the reason, he couldn’t have that student in his classroom. It proved a liability and Will talked too much about methods killers used to do such darkened, charred things.

He dismissed his class, stopping the boy to ask his name, making a mental note of it before heading around to the right side of his desk to pack his things. Chi took the opportunity to approach him and Will noticed ink set in her skin, words on the inside of her right arm intelligible in the classroom; on her left arm lay a stag, Will mentally chuckled at the irony, on her bicep and below it a nettle bush twined it’s was around the very top of her forearm, a wolf peeking out from between the thorns.

“I think you know why I’m here,” She sounded out of breath and as Will got a better look at Chi; her hair shone in the light, dampened with either rainwater or grease, and her makeup wasn’t done as it was when he first met her. Her eyes seemed dampened without the contrast of the eyeliner.

“You think you’ve found a break in the case.”

“You think I’m wrong.”

“Not with that statement,” It was a loose joke and Chi’s taut jawline loosened in a moment of humor and she raised a hand to run through her hair, but thought better of it.

“We’ve got this all wrong, Mulder,” Chi seemed fond of the nickname and Will couldn’t deny the warm pit it nurtured in his belly, “We really were looking at the victim in that clearing.” Something akin to guilt flashed through her eyes and Will remembered the way she talked about the man when she believed him a rapist. “The semen they found wasn’t a match to our victim and they found tears in the anal tissue.”

Will couldn’t help himself, his mouth worked before his brain and he spoke, “You speak like a doctor. Should I begin calling you Doctor Scully?” A piss poor joke, but the poetry of her laugh painted itself on his classroom walls before she shook her head.

“No. I’m a police officer at a local precinct. Their psych consult.” Will nodded and suddenly it made sense, but he didn’t want to bring it up. “But Jack wants to talk to you at the morgue.” Will nodded and finished packing his bag before slinging it over his shoulder. He wasn’t expecting Chi to walk with him, let alone keep yammering on about things that didn’t pertain to the case, but things about a more personal level.

“No offense,” He said when they reached his car, “But are you joining us at the morgue?” It was cold outside and the loose fitting blue shirt and the cracking paint that match swiped under her ear, and the loose specks covering her fingers and hands and arms made Will believe that she had been painting before she rushed to meet him. “Or are you going to go home to your acrylics?” He put his briefcase in his trunk before he looked back to Chi, who was looking down at her hands in surprise.

“I’m joining you. I wasn’t aware that I had gotten so much paint on myself.” Will chuckled and shut the trunk, jostling his old, rust laden car. “But, yes, I am joining you at the morgue. I’ve got my own ride, though.”

“You might want to wash the oil from your hair,” His voice was rather rude and he flipped a loose piece of hair from her forehead and he watched the back of her neck flush, the red crawling over her cheekbones and over the bridge of her nose. “It’s unprofessional.” She nodded.

“With all due respect, Mr.Graham,” She mocked, “It’s coconut oil. It keeps my hair soft and voluminous. You could use a little yourself, Will.” He tried to pretend that Chi wasn’t checking out his looks, his sharp jawline and angular face and lucid eyes, but he tried to pretend that she was looking at the scenery behind him. “I’ll see you at the morgue.” She turned on her heel, of her very trashed and paint covered Converse, and sauntered away to where a motorcycle was very illegally parked.

Will opened his door, shaking his hair out, before trying to shake the cold of the afternoon air.

-

Will was sweating, head tilted back as his nerves and lost time made dark rings around the holes in his light shirt. He was gasping for breath, coming out of a nightmare, a daydream. He looked up and saw that he was sitting outside out of an unfamiliar house, with a motorcycle sitting outside, chrome finish and red paint dripping like blood down the gas tank and nothing but Chi’s personality written over it like her handwriting. A headache bloomed under his eyes and he groaned, trying to shut out everything.

A knock on the window of his rusty car reverberated painfully in his skull, but he still cracked an eye open to see Chi leaning over him, looking much better than the last time he had seen her.

“Will Graham, what are you doing in front of my house?” She was accusing him and Will knew that she had the right. She was a consult on a case and he was basically dying in front of her house; Will knew exactly how that looked. “And why do you look like you’ve run the Boston Marathon?”

“I don’t know,” He said, voice barely carrying through the glass of his window. It was the truth; he must have blacked out and the thought of driving when he couldn’t remember leaving the parking lot of work scared Will so badly that his hands shook too much to actually open his car door, or move at all. Chi seemed to pick up on that and cracked his door open, leaning over him and pressing a hand to his forehead.

It was cool against his scorching skin and set Will’s lung fluttering with panic. If she was that cold she had to be dead, and in one move he clasped her wrist in his long, bony fingers, eyes falling shut as he struggled to find a pulse. Will looked at Chi as she thrashed, skin peeling off in long pulls of bloody flesh that stuck to Will’s fingers like gloves.

He recoiled and pushed Chi back, hearing the snap of her collar bones as his hands made contact with them, the flesh already melting off of her bones. He screamed, backpedaling when her eyes rolled back in her head and her neck snapped at it lolled to the side; blood was pooling under the milk of her eyes. Will watched in horror as it overtook the crystallized honey of her eyes, throat slicing open as her vocal cords vibrated as the fell from her neck, a silent scream echoing in the corners of Will’s shadowy mind. He lurched forward and clasped a hand around her neck, trying to stop the bleeding but it made more flesh stick to his hands and as he pulled back it tore, the sick ripping sound causing his heart to stop.

He leapt up, head smacking against the room of his car as Chi stood outside of his door, knocking on the window. He pushed the door open, nearly toppling her, and then he climbed out of the car to cool his body with the snow twisting toward the ground. He gasped for air as Chi shut his car door for him, her hands sliding from Will’s biceps to grasp at the top of his shoulders.

“You’re sweating bullets, Will. What are you doing at my house?” He looked around, truly at Chi’s house. Her motorcycle was sitting in the yard, just like in his dream, and he shuddered when everything looked the same.

“I don’t, I don’t know..” He mumbled, hand gasping the hair on his forehead. “The last thing I remember,” Will didn’t finish his sentence, backing up and squinting his eyes as he turned to look somewhere besides Chi’s eyes.

She sighed and tugged on his elbow, nodding toward her open front door, “Come inside, Will. Your fever is too hot to be out here without a coat.” Her sentence didn’t make sense, but he followed her anyways, stumbling behind her blindly.


End file.
